The Île de France region !!!

Posted in France, Paris, Versailles

After maintenance work in my vault saw several pictures not in my blog and they should, me think, These are souvenirs of my first region in France, the Île de France. It is the most populated region of France and one its smallest as it includes amongst others Paris, Versailles, Fontainebleau, etc, Let me tell you a bit about my former region in my black and white series, no pictures. The Île de France region !!! Hope you enjoy the post as I.

 I cannot tell how many times in and out of CDG and especially Terminal 2 , and have plenty explaining all about it in the blog, You have here 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E out into satellite hall L and M , 2F, and 2G.  The CDGVAL monorail train allows you to easily connect all the car parkings and train stations of Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, Also, you can connect on Terminal 2  to Roissybus, and RATP bus lines 350 to Porte de la Chapelle & line 351 to place de la Nation, Noctilien night bus lines N140 and N143 to Gare de l’Est train station as well as the RER B train., This is one of the arrivial looking for my dear late father Elio arriving from Miami Fla USA, The aéroport de Paris on terminals at CDG : https://www.parisaeroport.fr/en/passengers/access/paris-charles-de-gaulle/terminals-map

Well, let me tell you finally about the Île de France region !!! The region borders five other regions: the Hauts-de-France, to the north, the Grand Est, to the east, the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, to the southeast, the Centre-Val de Loire, to the south -west, and  Normandy, to the west. Today, it brings together eight departments: Essonne (91), Hauts-de-Seine (92) , Paris (75), Seine-Saint-Denis (93), Seine-et-Marne (77) , Val-de-Marne (94) , Val-d’Oise (95), and the Yvelines (78). The Seine-et-Marne to the east, remains unchanged from the old days, thus becoming the largest department of Île-de-France, covering about half of the regional surface area ! A bit of condense history I like from a tourist/visitor view !! The Île-de-France is the cradle of Gothic architecture whose jewels are the Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Saint-Denis Basilica, the Royaumont Abbey, the Vincennes castle, the Saint-Eustache Church , the Conciergerie and the Sainte-Chapelle. Evidence of Renaissance architecture, such as the monumental Château d’Écouen (Val-d’Oise 95) built by Anne de Montmorency in the 16C. The Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile and the Hôtel National des Invalides in Paris, and the châteaux of Versailles, Vincennes, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Fontainebleau and Rambouillet are also monuments of classical and neoclassical architecture, The Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre is in the Roman-Byzantine style. Modern and contemporary architecture is well represented with the Centre Georges-Pompidou, the Montparnasse tower, the Grande Arche and the towers de la Défense, the National Library of France, the Stade de France, and in the new towns of Marne-la-Vallée (Noisy-le-Grand 77), Cergy-Pontoise (95) ,-Évry-Courcouronnes (91), Melun-Sénart (77) and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (78) .The region currently has eight cities of Art and History: Paris, Boulogne-Billancourt, Étampes, Rambouillet, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Pontoise, Meaux and Noisiel. It has four historical and tourist routes: the historic route of the writer’s houses, the Normandy-Vexin route, the François 1er route and the Impressionists route. It has 4 most beautiful gardens in France: Château de Breteuil, Château de Saint-Jean-de-Beauregard, Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, and the Domaine de Courson. Four sites are classified as UNESCO: the banks of the Seine in Paris, the Palace and Park of Fontainebleau, the Palace and Park of Versailles and the medieval fair town of Provins. Awesome !!!

Plenty of public transports and roads available even if surcharge nowdays, the Île de France region has plenty,see posts for more on them, In 1969, the first RER trains express regional were born with the line Nation to Boissy-Saint-Léger,completely electrified. In 1992, the tramways came back to Paris after leaving in 1937 with the line T1 covering La Défense. In all we have 16 lines of  metro  handle by RATP ,metro opened in 1900. The RER trains with five lines, A and B handle by the RATP and SNCF and lines C,D,E handle by the SNCF. The tramway has 10 lines, so 8 handle by the RATP and line T4 by the SNCF and line T11 by Keolis, first line in operation by 1992. The Transilien train network or TER of the SNCF that has other than the lines RER and T4 tramway ;9 other train lines of the suburbs. The bus has about 1500 lines with about 350 handle by the RATP and 1180 by Optile. There are, also, bike for rental such as the Vélib network, The highway network is very intensive and dense, you need to be used to big city driving to do it. The network covered over 800 km of expressways and a dozen radial networks with the principal ones been the Autoroute du Soleil A6 (Dijon, Lyon, Marseille), A1 Nord (Lille), A13 Normandie (Rouen, Caen, Le Havre), and the east A4 (Reims, Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg), A10 Aquitaine and A11 Océane (Nantes, Bordeaux, Rennes) as well as the beltway types such as the A 86, and the Francilienne A/N104.You have basically three airports such as the aéroport de Paris-Orly built during WWII, the aéroport de Paris Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle built in 1974, and the aéroport de Beauvais-Tillé located about 70 kms from Paris porte Maillot serving low cost airlines. The city of Paris, also, has a heliport,located in the 15éme district or arrondissement south of the boulevard périphérique, at the limit of the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux, and therefore it’s name héliport de Paris – Issy-les-Moulineaux.

The regional government Île de France on tourism : https://www.iledefrance.fr/tourisme

The official Île de France tourist office: https://www.visitparisregion.com/en

There you go folks, a dandy beautiful glorious Île de France region of my belle France, The first region I saw in France thanks to my wonderfully nice dear late wife Martine !!! There is so much to see and do here, Hemingway should had written a second book, France is a mouvable feast !!! Again, hope you enjoy this unique post on the Île de France region !!! as I

And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!

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Published by pedmar10

I am a lover of travels to Europe , Americas , Africa and Asia as well ,who like to share my experiences of the last 53 years with the world, visiting so far 81 countries; living in 6, working in 5, and Citizen of 4, speaking fluently 4 languages. I can deal with sports especially football/soccer and love music, arts, wine collector/drinker, and go out to restaurants, and just visit the world. My background comes all the way from Candelaria and Pajara in Tenerife, Spain where my grandparents came from ;not knowing each other then, to Punta Brava, west of Havana, Cuba. There , my parents born in Cuba met and later on I was born there too. 100% guanche (annexed Tenerife to Spain on April 10 ,1496). I left Cuba as many have to Madrid, Spain where I lived for 4 years. Then, move to Perth Amboy ,New Jersey USA (living there 13 yrs) ; where I completed high school, became a US Citizen, learned to drive a car, and learned English. Afterward, went to the university in Florida, ERAU, and upon graduation decided to moved there to Ormond by the Sea, near Daytona Beach, finally moving North Miami, then Hialeah, then another moved to Silver Lakes division in Miramar, Broward county, Florida; in Florida I lived a total of 18 years. Finally , moved to France in 2003 ,Versailles call me for its royalty, and working in Paris was great. It was time to seek frontiers again and moved to Brech near Auray, Morbihan in Brittany , and later move to not too far Pluvigner. Total so far in France has been 20 years, and counting. Moving average a home every 5.5 years hopefully this will be my last. Cheers All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means or stored in a retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the copyright holder, me. No part of this work may be modified, without the written permission of the holder, me.No part of this work may be exposed to public view in any form or by any means, without identifying the holder as the author, and with the before mentioned permission.

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